Shadow Moon by Marilee Brothers Release Date: November 11, 2011 Publisher: Bell Bridge Books Source: NetGalley Rating: Buy It: Amazon

Allie Emerson is hoping for a few quiet months to catch her breath after a summer that included the discovery she is not only a twin and of faery blood, but also destined to play a pivotal role in faery world. School has barely begun when Allie must kiss her hope of a normal year goodbye.  She can’t escape her unfinished business with the fae, the Trimarks, or Junior Alvarez, who is making it clear he plans to win her back. Signs, portents and whispers are pushing Allie to “find the girl” before it’s too late. Hoping her twin can help her solve the riddle of their destiny, Allie uncovers old secrets and begins a cross-country journey that puts her in more danger than ever before. If she succeeds, she may just find the answers that can save everyone she loves.

Review
I didn’t even remember that Allie had a twin.  Oops.  Shows you how much I disliked the last book’s fairy plotline.  Oh well.  I liked this one much more right off the bat.  For one, Junior is back.  We also don’t seem to be too immersed in Fairyland this time around.  Weird things are happening again–a creepy fairy is acting as Allie’s guardian angel and the government has managed to find out information about the moonstone.  Allie has to be on the lookout for Trimarks and the government in this one.  She’s searching for her twin sister, plus she has all the other Purdy-related family drama to deal with.  Since I assume this is the last book, things should start coming to a head soon.

Despite not being immersed in fairies, we do meet a new one, namely Jessie, a dark fae dating Kizzy’s horrible daughter, Carmel.  So it looks like Allie’s on the run from the dark fae as well.  The Trimarks are planning another uprising, so Allie has to move fast.  I was slightly horrified by the addition of stereotypical Irish mannerisms being added to the stereotypicality of Brothers’ Hispanic characters, so excuse me if I indulge in a little written eye-rolling.  Ireland is a really tired location for urban fantasy.  We get it, Ireland is magical and fairies and druids and omg Celtic Wicca, but seriously, as someone whose grandfather emigrated from Ireland, I just want it to stop.  Let’s go to, like, Croatia or something.  Anywhere but Ireland.

Luckily, we don’t dwell on Ireland for too long.  Allie spends most of this book learning about and trying to locate her twin, Anne Marie Scott.  She recruits Junior and a runaway named Sammie tags along as well.  I had my suspicions about Sammie right off, but she was a welcome addition to the Allie-Faye-Junior parade.  When things finally start getting real, I found I really enjoyed this one.  It brought Allie back to who she was in the first book, and the story was smoother as well.

So, in all, I enjoyed this series.  It’s just as good as most other paranormal YA series out there, and I’ve certainly seen worse.  I’d check this one out if you liked and read the first three.  Marilee Brothers commented at the blog to let us know she’s writing the fifth, and last, book now, so we’re almost done with Allie’s story!

Moon Spun by Marilee Brothers Release Date: July 1, 2010 Publisher: Bell Bridge Books Source: NetGalley Rating:  Buy It: Amazon

Junior’s back from Mexico with his movie-star entourage. Beck’s using his half-demon charms to “heal” a new girl. Mom’s still wacky and now she’s dating Principal Hostetler. High school is still an obstacle course of drama queens, bullies and nutjobs. The Trimarks are still a menace, and the moonstone pendant has revealed even more mind-boggling powers. In other words, Allie Emerson’s life as the Girl Voted Least Likely To Save The World From Evil has gone from Weird to Super-Charged Super-Weird, and it’s about to get even weirder. You’re a faery princess. So says the mysterious Ryker, whose handsome talents include turning himself into a hawk. By the way, he and Allie are destined to marry. In faery land–Boundless. If they can save it from forces even more deadly than Trimarks and high school. The third book in the Unbidden Magic series plunges readers into a rich other-world of danger, humor, romance, fable, fairytale and magical destiny.

Review
So here we are, back in Peacock Flats with Allie and Faye and all the rest.  Beck has left for college and found a new girlfriend.  Junior is back in town.  Ryker is annoying.  So, Allie’s love triangle is now a love square.  We meet the fae in this one too, which usually excites me, but this one was kind of weird to me.  We jump from Allie being a Star Seeker to Faye being…well, fae, thereby making Allie fae as well.  There’s just a lot going on in this one.  I wonder when Allie goes to school.  She’s always running around, going to Faeryland, escaping from assassins and stuff.  I don’t know why this one just felt so jumpy to me, but it did.  We get a ton of information at the beginning and I, for one, was left wondering what to do with it all.

So besides Allie’s romantic entanglements, she annoys me by resisting the idea that the fae exist and that she is one of them.  COME ON.  I mean, is it really that big of a leap from supernatural being to faery?  No, I don’t think so.  Someone would tell her something and she would consciously choose to ignore it until it bit her in the ass.  It bugged me.  It’s like she regressed.  I thought I’d get over it when she went to Boundless, but she acts so stupid it was hard to take seriously.  I skimmed a lot of the description and stuff, but I think I finally figured out the point of this novel at about the halfway point: save Allie’s fairy grandmother.  Who we don’t know.  And have no emotional investment in.  Sigh.

I had a hard time getting into this one, mostly because there’s this influx of new characters that I’m suddenly supposed to care about and like.  Junior’s presence is minimal.  Beck is in Seattle.  We hardly even see Beck’s sister, Nicole, or Allie’s friends, Manny and Mercedes.  Kizzy’s hardly in the book at all.  Even Faye’s presence is diminished in the first two-thirds.  I just didn’t care that Melia was growing weaker, and I didn’t care about Hostetler’s fairy kid, and I didn’t care about Faye’s background either.  I was so, so annoyed by the love square and all the macho posturing between Beck, Junior, and Ryker, but, thankfully, so was Allie, so there wasn’t a whole lot of agonizing.

I think I finally got into it around the time we met Delphine, which is weird because I love fairy novels.  I don’t know why this one just didn’t stick with me.  I mean, I thought some things in Boundless were funny, like the costume Melia gives Allie, and I eventually started figuring out the faery mythology, but it just seemed like too much too fast.  I didn’t realize I’d be getting myself into a fairy book, but I should have known.  Every adult urban fantasy novel seems to eventually descend into fairy territory.  Maybe YA isn’t immune.

I liked the end though.  I liked that there’s some inevitability to the world.  I hope Allie isn’t able to squirm out of it easily, to be honest.  I like a good fight, but I also like a heroine who accept defeat.  If they all defy the odds, things start getting a little boring, you know?  We’ll see.  Shadow Moon is up next!

Moon Rise by Marilee Brothers Release Date: February 13, 2012 Publisher: Bell Bridge Books Source: NetGalley Rating: Buy It: Amazon

Her mom’s still dating losers. Her boyfriend’s gone back to Mexico. Dad still hasn’t told his wife and kids that she exists. At school, the drama queens and bullies still rule. But worst of all for Allie Emerson–aka the Star Seeker of an old Gypsy prophecy–is that her powers have taken a hike. She can’t read minds anymore. She can’t move stuff just by looking at it. The other Star Seekers are counting on her psychic gifts more than ever, and the evil Tri-marks are closing in, eager to snatch her magic moonstone necklace while she’s helpless. The hot new guy at school is ready and willing to fight her battles, but he comes with some wicked baggage. Dear Diary: I’m a little worried. My new BF is a demon. Welcome again to Allie Emerson’s funny, scary, amazing, and always unpredictable life, as the girl voted least likely to save the world from evil.

Review
Wah, there’s no Junior in this one. I liked him, but I’m also okay with Allie dating around. She’s fifteen! There is no rush to settle down. I even like Beck a lot. His sister is kind of a brat, but she has her reasons and I understand them. Kizzy is back in action, which is something I’m happy about, because Faye has not stopped screeching, though she does have a job and boyfriend now. Allie is not happy about that, but she counteracts it by going to a big Star Seekers convention with her father, which pisses Faye off. The convention turns out to be kind of embarrassing since, as the summary mentions, she has lost her powers. Allie is so awkward around Beck at first, which I find really endearing. Sometimes I hate it when teenagers act like children over kissing, but Allie’s mother has been drilling the evils of sex into her head for so long that it’s an ingrained lesson. I started kissing boys in first grade and never stopped. I’m…not the best role model apparently.

You know what I got really tired of though? The way girls interact in this one. It’s like middle school amplified by a thousand, or an HBO version of high school with girls calling each other anorexic in front of teachers and just general bitchery happening. It’s like no one can have a real friendship, especially not those popular girls. Reminds me of the way Cat from the Night Huntress series treats all women: like whores out to steal her man. Allie doesn’t necessarily act this way, but everyone else does. I find that most romance novels have interactions like this one. I’ve read a few books by adult authors giving YA the old college try, and sometimes their ideas don’t translate as well. This is one of those times. Age can really be a factor when writing believable YA, in my opinion. And it took me forever to get through the first half because the pace is like a snail’s compared to the first book. Reminds me a little of Supernaturally, which is by an author I truly love and admire, in that it seems like a boring info-dump filler novel. This happens a lot when it comes to sophomore novels.

The world in which Allie lives is totally black and white. Star Seekers are good, Trimarks are bad. Always, no exception. That bugs me, because no one is fully evil, unless they’re a sociopath or something, and no one is completely good. The reason for Junior’s departure is completely ridiculous, but I don’t mind that Allie hops from boy to boy. She’s a teenage girl! She doesn’t need to find her soulmate right now. It’s okay for her to kiss multiple boys, okay? Not everything is “destined” a la Bella Swan. What bugs me are the reasons for why the boys leave. It couldn’t be more obvious that Brothers just wanted a change of scenery for Allie, and used various boys to achieve this.

I sound like I hated this novel, but I didn’t, not at all! I still like Allie, I liked Beck from the beginning, and the supporting cast remains as likable as ever. Though the story sort of slumps, I was still interested in what was happening to Allie and her world, and I still want to know more.  I feel like maybe I was too hard on this book now I reread what I wrote earlier, but I’m going to let everything stand.  I’m really looking forward to reading Moon Spun, so make sure you check back here soon!

Moonstone by Marilee Brothers Release Date: February 13, 2012 Publisher: Bell Bridge Books Source: NetGalley Rating: Buy It: Amazon

A sickly mom. A tiny house trailer. High school bullies and snarky drama queens. Bad-guy dudes with charming smiles. Allie has problems. And then there’s that whole thing about fulfilling a magical prophecy and saving the world from evil. Geez. Welcome to the sad, funny, sometimes-scary world of fifteen-year-old Allie Emerson, who’s struggling to keep her and her mom’s act together in the small-town world of Peacock Flats, Washington. An electrical zap from a TV antenna sets off Allie’s weird psychic powers. The next thing she knows she’s being visited by a hippy-dippy guardian angel, and then her mysterious neighbor, the town “witch,” gives her an incredible moonstone pendant that has powers only a good-hearted “Star Seeker” is meant to command. “Who, me?” is Allie’s first reaction. But as sinister events begin to unfold, Allie realizes she’s got a destiny to live up to. If she can just survive everyday life, in the meantime.

Review
So this one is the whole series put together, offered by NetGalley. I’ll be reviewing them one at a time, just so I can keep to my review schedule. So Allie is poor and lives with her mother (who Allie calls Faye, which is an anvil if I ever saw one) in a trailer park. Her “spirit guide” shows up smoking a joint. One of her mother’s friends is a Romany gypsy. Which is all very convenient for a girl about to discover her powers. And you know what else? Allie’s voice is very much like Rose’s from the Ilona Andrews series, The Edge. I didn’t particularly like the first book in that series, but I wanted to give Allie a chance. She’s really resistant to her power at first, like nearly all the rest of paranormal YA protags, but she tells her mother about it, and Faye believes her! I was so happy when that happened. I thought, maybe this won’t be another Case of the Missing Parents after all. But then Allie tries to return her magic pendant and I am annoyed, because, Allie, you live in a trailer with a mom who doesn’t get out of bed. You find out you have magic and you want things to remain the same? No. No, Allie, take the pendant and do something other than live in a trailer your whole life! Am I the only one who would have accepted my powers wholesale if this had been me? Anyone?

These things always end the same way. You can’t give the magic back, and neither can Allie.  And around this point, I really started liking what I was reading.  After the initial resistance (and that is something that always bugs me, no matter the heroine), Allie becomes kind of awesome.  She saves her bully from a gang, she goes to confront her father, and learns she has siblings.  The weird “I like my step-cousin” thing is resolved.  A lot is happening to her all at once.  Her aunt is trying to get Faye and Allie kicked off the aunt’s land.  CPS comes calling on Allie’s birthday.  Allie’s mentor, Kizzy, is attacked and left for dead.  Magic is never clean, and I was super intrigued by the mystery of Allie’s father and the mystery of her moonstone.  Allie doesn’t know everything, so I’m hoping to see more Trilby.  I must know more about this prophecy!  And the unexpected, unconventional romance was pretty cool.

There’s really less mystery, more intrigue in this one.  We know the names of the bad guys and we (mostly) know their motives.  It’s how to stop them that’s tough, and that goes in hand with Allie learning about her new powers.  Allie spends a lot of time afraid of her ability, even after she’s accepted that she has one.  It’s interesting to get to know more about the prophecy, but I found myself wishing Allie’s friends were a little more fleshed out.  I’d like to know more about Mercedes and Manny and more about Trilby too.  I really liked getting to know Junior, though I ended up having suspicions of my own about him.

This one has some problems with racial sensitivity and stereotypes, which is a hard thing to get over.  I managed to, because I liked Allie and I think it’s meant to be harmless, even if it’s less harmless than it seems.  Allie is the only one who’s really developed, character-wise, and the mythology is kind of thin.  I’m hoping the next few books clear up those issues.  Other than that, I liked this one a lot!  Urban fantasy for teenagers, basically.  The romance is so low-key as to almost be nonexistent, but it’s fun too.  Can’t wait for the next one!